Samantha Betanzos (right) and Jessica Pina (left) of North County Lifeline walk near Oceanside Blvd. during their homeless count on Friday in Oceanside, California.

Like many of the 800-some volunteers who participated in a pre-dawn count of homeless people Friday, Samantha Betanzos braved drizzly weather and scary pathways and sometimes got her shoes muddy while exploring hidden niches with a flashlight and clipboard.

“Is there anybody here?” Betanzos asked as she approached a thick brushy area in a canyon below the Oceanside Senior Center.

Hearing a guttural response come from the darkness, she turned and headed back up the hill.

“I wish I were gutsier,” she said, back in the car. “I know there are more people down there.”

By the time she and fellow volunteer Jessica Pina had finished around 8 a.m., however, Betanzos had tallied a good number of homeless people in the area she was covering as part of the annual We All Count census organized by the San Diego County Regional Task Force on the Homeless.

The task force, along with similar organizations throughout the country, coordinates the homeless count each January. Data from the census is used in a competition for HUD funding for homeless programs throughout the nation.

Dolores Diaz, executive director of the task force, said HUD provided the agency with $15 million last year for its programs to help the homeless in San Diego County. The task force has just submitted a new request for $16.7 million, which it would use to renew 52 projects and start three new ones.

The annual homeless census includes taking a head count of people in winter shelters and transitional housing. Finding people in canyons, doorways and cars, however, takes more footwork.

As part of the effort, about 50 volunteers gathered at North County Lifeline in Oceanside just before 5 a.m. Friday to pick up maps and some strong coffee before hitting the road.

Among the volunteers were San Marcos resident Katrina Meredith, her boyfriend, James Caldwell, and son Alex, 16, and daughter Summer, 10.

“I wanted my kids to appreciate what they have, and to not grow up with a sense of entitlement,” Meredith said about why she signed up for the dawn patrol.

Betanzos’ and Pina’s maps included some highlighted areas that Oceanside Police officers had suggested as areas likely to include homeless people.

Diaz said law enforcement officials throughout the county collaborated with the task force this year, an effort she expected would result in better data.

It worked for Betanzos and Pina, whose first stop was the open fields behind the Oceanside Office Park on South Oceanside Boulevard and Union Plaza Court, which had been highlighted on their map.

The duo found no signs of homeless people at their first stop, but after returning after sunrise they came across a small encampment that included a stove fashioned out of a tire and a kettle.

Scanning the area while driving, Pina and Betanzos sometimes spotted the silhouette of a person with a backpack or someone standing in the shadows by a market. Another person had left a muddy trail, possibly from a nearby canyon, into a McDonalds. Outside, a panhandler approached and said he had been out all night and needed money for breakfast.